Cocktails with Peanut paste
Peanut paste is ground roasted peanuts with nothing else added, a thick, oily nut-paste base.
Taste profile
Dominated by a strong roasted-peanut aroma, with only faint natural sweetness and a light background bitterness; the body is heavy and oily rather than sharp.
How it's used
Serving as a body-and-flavour base rather than a small seasoning, it thickens and enriches blended or shaken drinks and lends a roasted-nut aroma; the paste and its separated oil must be stirred back together before measuring.
Substitutes for Peanut paste
Only another peanut product reproduces the roasted-peanut aroma and oily body — peanut butter (peanut paste plus additives) is the nearest, with its sweetness and salt adjusted out; where the paste is only a minor thickener, another ground nut or seed paste of similar fat content can stand in.
Often confused with
Peanut butter
Peanut paste is ground roasted peanuts alone, whereas peanut butter is characteristically that paste plus added stabilizer, sweetener, salt and/or emulsifier. In some markets the names were used interchangeably, so the two are not always kept distinct.
